New from Cambridge University Press!

Edited By Keith Allan and Kasia M. Jaszczolt

This book "fills the unquestionable need for a comprehensive and up-to-date handbook on the fast-developing field of pragmatics" and "includes contributions from many of the principal figures in a wide variety of fields of pragmatic research as well as some up-and-coming pragmatists."

Book Information

The central question of Marten's volume is how languages and parliamentsinteract, and what role a parliamentary institution can play withinlanguage policy. This question is addressed in particular in the context ofminority languages and language revitalisation processes. Based on in-depthresearch of parliamentary documents and interviews with policy makers,scholars, and language activists from Scotland and Norway, the studyinvestigates how the establishment of the decentralised Scottish Parliamentand the parliamentary assembly for the Sámi population in Norway, theSameting, have generated increased efforts of language maintenance of theGaelic and Sámi languages respectively.

For this purpose, Marten on the one hand contrasts the situations beforeand after the establishment of these two parliaments in 1999 and 1989respectively, and on the other hand compares the developments in the twocountries in the light of the different political structures in Scotlandand Norway. The study illustrates how negotiations take place betweensupportive and reluctant policy makers in the two parliamentary contextsand shows how they have eventually resulted in a higher level ofempowerment of the two speech communities. As a result, the volumetherefore shows that a decentralisation of parliaments can indeed lead toincreased language maintenance efforts, albeit within certain limits.Parliamentary decentralisation is thus identified to be one piece withinthe large puzzle of minority language policy. As such, it is related to thetheoretical literature on minority languages by suggesting an additionalcomponent in the evaluation of minority language situations.